ACTIVITIES AND PUBLICATIONS

Program Models for HIV/AIDS Prevention

For the project year 1999 - 2000, six campuses were selected in a competitive application process to demonstrate new approaches to addressing HIV prevention on their campuses. Their reports illustrate how different types of campuses approached this task in relation to their own campus cultures, institutional types, student demographics, and community contexts.

At the conclusion of their projects, HELP asked each campus director the following questions: How has the campus learned from what has been tried? Have plans been adjusted as a result? What did you, as the program director, learn and what would you do differently?

  • Sample response, from Holyoke Community College

    The most significant outcome of the program is our understanding of the power of student leadership in making change. We learned that when social or behavioral change is desired, students are much more responsive to their peers. We believe that the college faculty has developed a new respect for student leadership potential. In health education, the students rather than the faculty are seen as "resident experts." We have also learned valuable techniques for training these peer educators by using basic principles of adult learning and public health. Further, we learned that an integrated approach to developing a healthy life style is preferable to delivering health information in discrete, separate components. We found the health and safety issues to be interrelated, and learned that students responded to a positive, integrated approach. We also learned that the techniques we use for recruiting and training peer educators and leaders are useful in all of our other service learning activities, regardless of the services involved.